Responses to the Coup d'etat in Honduras on Sunday June 28, with special emphasis on producing English-language versions of commentaries by Honduran scholars and editorial writers and addressing the confusion encouraged by lack of basic knowledge about Honduras.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

A Message from a Honduran of the Next Generation

This one I translate in full; I do not share the name for fear of reprisal, but this correspondent is a friend of mine, a graduate student now in the US with many years working in her country for its progress:

Yesterday in the afternoon journalists from the radio station Globo, which objectively reported what was happening in the country, were attacked. These journalists were wounded, with broken bones and cuts on their body. In addition, their equipment was destroyed. Cable service from the International Spanish Television (TSI) has been cut and so this station is now transmitting on broadband. Honduran journalists critical of the de facto government are being arrested and menaced with death. The same way, the journalists of Telesur and AP were arrested by the military, although later freed in response to international pressure.

The Honduran people find themselves misinformed, as only what the coup government wishes them to know is being transmitted. Consequently, the opinion of the people is divided as a product of this disinformation in the country.

The population doesn't know that people demonstrating are being violently attacked, with blows, gunshots, acid and tear gas. As well, yesterday a caravan of 12 buses that were coming from Olancho were attacked by gunshots by a military convoy, leaving then stranded in the middle of the road; an action that has been repeated with other caravans coming from the interior of the country. There is an order out for the capture of political activists, workers, and campesinos (rural farmers). Up until now, the outcome of the actions of the de facto government has been dozens of wounded, various deaths, dozens arrested and disappeared.

The popular resistance made a call to the national and international Honduran populace to demonstrate and condemn this de facto government, since it is not possible that, in the name of the law, God, love, and the Constitution they should be violating the human rights of the people. They are hitting, killing, and making disappear the people that are against the coup d'etat, violating the right of free expression, liberty, life, and travel, and violating the right of the people in general to information.

It is unheard of (unprecedented) that the illegitimate Canciller (minister of foreign affairs) should say to the national population that in moments of crisis the only right that prevails-- above all others-- is that of force. Justifying coups, assassinations, kidnappings and disinformation in this way.

We make a call that the UN and the rest of the countries in the world-- especially the US-- condemn and sanction Honduras, as have the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.